


Where the Horizon Ends

by Africana123



Series: The Things We Left Behind [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Echo and Dean are endgame, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 04:40:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20252335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Africana123/pseuds/Africana123
Summary: This is the story of how Dean from "I can't wait for you anymore" fell to Earth, was sold into slavery, earned his freedom, gained a spot in the bunker, lived through the following battles and ended up falling in love with an Azgedan spy. It's gonna be a wild ride.





	Where the Horizon Ends

Dean had loved his brother. More than life and anything in it. And he had lost Sam much too soon. Sam was one of the good ones. He was strong in his convictions and cared more about what was right than Dean ever could. Dean asked himself everyday "what would Sam do" and tried his hardest to make the memory of his brother proud. 

So you'll understand why he was having such a hard time killing the man advancing on him that bared such an uncanny resemblance to his late brother. 

"Kill! Kill! Kill!" the crowd chanting from above the arena. 

Dean swallowed thickly and kept retreating from the man - no, boy, he was more of a boy - with the sword. 

No matter how many fights he had been in since being sold to the arena, Dean would never get used to the feeling of taking an innocent life. 

Dean had stolen from, lied to, cheated, and even harmed other people in his short life, but before this he had never killed. Until now, that is. Earth had made him a murderer. 

The brown hair boy darted forward to swing his sword at Dean's right side, but Dean quickly blocked him and darted away out of reach. He was starting to get lightheaded from the still-bleeding gash along his left calf. He was also slowing down. He needed to end this soon or he wouldn't be walking away. 

"You don't have to do this," Dean told the boy, but they both knew it was a lie. If one of them didn't kill the other, then the sponsors would kill them both. 

The boy didn't respond. Just roared and lifted his sword above his head like a club and ran at Dean. A rookie mistake. Another clue of just how young this kid really was. 

Dean quickly prayed whatever god was listening for forgiveness before gripping his own sword tighter in his and sliding low, stabbed the boy through the gut. The kid's momentum didn't let him stop, he collided against Dean's body. But he was dying now. They both knew it. He sagged against Dean's chest and his still raised arms came down to blanket Dean's shoulders, the sword falling from his hands. In any other situation this would've looked like a hug. Dean briefly wished it was something as innocent. Dean threw an arm around the boy's back and hold him against him as he died. 

He squeezed his eyes shut as the death rattle went through the kid's lungs, before he fell limp and Dean gently laid his body down to the bloody arena floor. 

The kid stared sightlessly above, eyes no longer seeing this world. They were the exact same shade Sam's had used to be. 

All around him cheers erupted as the fight was won. They would cheer his death just as loudly. 

"Thirty-three! Thirty-three! Thirty-three!" 

They cheered his death count like it was a badge of honor. Some winners liked to strut around the battleground and soak up the applause. Sometimes the crowd would even throw gifts down to them if they put on a really good fight. Dean never stayed longer than he needed to. After a fight he'd immediately walk to the gated door that lead in and out of the arena to wait for his master's guards to collect him. They never took long. And there they were waiting for him as he made his way to the doorway. 

"Good fight, slave. Your master will be pleased with the prize you just won her," a soldier congratulated. 

Dean just grunted back in reply. He just wanted to get back to his room so he could wash the blood and gore from his body and pretend this day along with every other of the past thirty-three weeks had never happened. But first he'd have to stop by the champion's chambers to have another tally-mark tattooed onto his back. They made him get one after every fight. His master thought it made Dean more impressive in the eyes of her peers. Dean just thought it was another sick reminder of the failed promise of the ground. 

He was lead to the room where he'd be tattooed and sat when the artist told him to and closed his eyes. 

His thoughts drifted off as the artist got to work. The ground was suppose to be better. That's what everyone had said growing up. That it was a paradise waiting. That's what he told Sam every night when Sam would ask for a bed time story. It was such a lie. Another in a long stream of broken promises. How did he end up here, he thought. It wasn't suppose to be this way. He had been with farm station as they went down to Earth, there wasn't enough space on his home station, Mecha. And at first when they landed relatively unharmed, it had seemed like a miracle. A first for him. And he had watched with the others as the children wandered out into the snow and began to play. And for a second, just one glorious second, it seemed that everything Dean had sacrificed along the way was worth it. Every night he'd gone to bed hungry, every lost family member, every crushing disappointment was worth it if he got to live in a world where children played in the snow. And then the arrows came. And the snow was stained red with the blood of dead children. And Azgeda had descended upon them like wolves from a horror story. 

Dean was one of the lucky ones. He knew that. He was one of the ones that survived after all. But it was hard to think of himself as lucky after he was sold into slavery by his Azgedan captures and kept being sold until he had ended up here, in an Ingranronakru gladiator ring fighting for his life every week, being forced to kill to survive. 

The pricking of the needle kept coming down upon his back like it was a manifestation of his sins. 

Maybe he should just throw the next fight and die in the ring, he though glumly. Maybe death was the only way out. Or maybe this wasn't so bad? He was fed more than he ever had been on the Ark after all. Maybe his conscience was a good price to pay for relative safety. But the more lives he took, the harder it was for Dean to even eat the food let alone enjoy it. 

He put his head in his hands and sighed. What would Sam do? And then the thought came to Dean. 

Sam would escape or die trying.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm only posting the first chapter for now to test the waters. Tell me what you think. If you guys like it, I'll continue.


End file.
